For Dems only.

[BigSqwert]

McCain had some issues last night.

 

As the battle over Indiana progressed between Sens Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, a set of depressing polls numbers were finalized for John McCain.

 

In the GOP primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the basically uncontested Republican nominee did not gain more than 80 percent of the vote.

 

In Indiana, McCain earned the backing of 78 percent of Republican primary voters, with exited candidates Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney gaining 10 percent and five percent respectively. Congressman Ron Paul, who is still in the race, has received seven percent of the vote.

 

The numbers were even worse in North Carolina, where McCain won 74 percent of the vote, with Huckabee earning 12 percent, Paul earning seven percent, and four percent of Republican primary goers simply voting "no preference."

 

None of these totals, to be sure, will affect the Arizona Republican's almost certain path to the nomination. But it has been more than two months now since McCain became the presumptive GOP candidate, and in each state election since he achieved that measure he has continued to lose a relatively substantial chunk of Republican support. In Pennsylvania, for example, McCain won 73 percent of the vote, with Paul pulling in 16 and Huckabee 11.

 

The troubling figures, however, may be the popular vote totals - individuals who McCain will theoretically have to woo back into his good graces. In North Carolina more than 105,000 Republicans did not vote for McCain. And in Indiana, 85,000 voters - whether they were Republican, Democrat or Independent - cast their ballots for someone other than the Arizona Republican.

 

The totals reflect roughly 90+ percent of the totals reported in each state, and will likely change, but not by much.

[southsider2k5]

I voted for Huckabee yesterday in the primary. Doesn't mean there is a chance in hell I am voting for Obama in the general election.

[kapkomet]

I voted for Huckabee yesterday in the primary. Doesn't mean there is a chance in hell I am voting for Obama in the general election.

Exactly...

[lostfan]

I think the non-McCain votes are mostly symbolic. Hell Ron Paul's support has stayed at a pretty steady level for the most part.

[Steve9347]

I really wish someone wouldn't have deleted the Democratic Primaries thread. Now I have to click on 4 different threads to read the stuff that could have all been posted in that single thread.

[HuskyCaucasian]

I really wish someone wouldn't have deleted the Democratic Primaries thread. Now I have to click on 4 different threads to read the stuff that could have all been posted in that single thread.

:headbang

Agreed

[BigSqwert]

Now it's official. Ron Paul supporters are crazy.

[bmags]

Good Lord.

[Balta1701]

In case you haven't been following it, there's a fascinating look at the Bush Administration happening over at the Federal Election Commission right now. Basically, George W. gets to nominate people, the Senate has to confirm them. The Bush administration has for several months been pushing for votes on a slate of 4 nominees (2 Dems and 2 Reps) to the committee to happen all as one block. Why? Because they have at least one nominee who'd lose in an up or down vote on him, Hans von Spakovsky, who amongst other things has been one of the "Voter suppression" gurus that the administration has been using at the Justice Department. So Bush pushes for a vote on all 4 at once, the Dems say no because they want to vote that guy down, and the FEC gets completely shut down.

 

Because the FEC can't get a quorum, it can't do normal business, like deciding on whether or not John McCain can opt out of the public campaign financing system after he'd already asked to opt in. Basically, if he isn't allowed out of that system, he goes to jail for 5 years. According to a letter from one of the 2 guys currently sitting on the FEC waiting for a quorum, David Mason, sent to the McCain camp, McCain was risking legal action and could not withdraw from the system without a majority vote by the FEC.

 

So, therefore...in an effort to resolve the controversy and get the FEC moving again, the President has submitted a new slate of nominees for the FEC today. What did he do to compromise? Did he remove Hans von Spakovsky? Did he decide to allow up or down votes on each of them individually? Did the Dems just vote them all down?

 

Of course not.

 

Instead, he resubmitted his list of nominees, with Hans von Spakovsky still included...but instead he replaced David Mason on the list. That's what you get for messing with the Republican nominee, I guess.

[kjshoe04]

Now it's official. Ron Paul supporters are crazy.

So, that's a cult right?

[mr_genius]

Now it's official. Ron Paul supporters are crazy.

 

haha that would suck living there

 

but hippie liberals have been doing this for years, nothing new. a lot of whom are Obama supporters. go figure

 

Edited May 8, 2008 by mr_genius

[Balta1701]

haha that would suck living there

 

but hippie liberals have been doing this for years, nothing new. a lot of whom are Obama supporters. go figure

 

I love the randomly thrown in insult at Obama supporters and presumably the candidate that seems totally out of place there.

 

Anyway, the "Free State Project", another libertarian group, has been trying to do the same thing for a few years as well. Clearly, this means Obama sucks.

[mr_genius]

I love the randomly thrown in insult at Obama supporters and presumably the candidate that seems totally out of place there.

 

Anyway, the "Free State Project", another libertarian group, has been trying to do the same thing for a few years as well. Clearly, this means Obama sucks.

 

I knew this post was coming.

 

of course, you are all for trashing Ron Paul supporters. saying all Ron Paul supporters are crazy is fine. even though there are some who post here (not me, but I still don't think they need to be verbally attacked like that). yea so, some are starting a weird commune, this is nothing new and I could assess Obama supporters are crazy because some of them are in communes. of course that would be false as well, as many Obama supporters are very smart, well based individuals.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2008 by mr_genius

[BigSqwert]

Nothing reminds me more of freedom than living in a gated community.

[mr_genius]

Nothing reminds me more of freedom than living in a gated community.

 

that and flag pin lapels.

[Balta1701]

Nothing reminds me more of freedom than living in a gated community.

Funny you should mention that. The gated communities are actually now the latest sign of progress in Baghdad!

[mr_genius]

Funny you should mention that. The gated communities are actually now the latest sign of progress in Baghdad!

 

that and for Obama spiritual advisors !

 

can we all just agree that everyone should live in a gated community? it keeps unsavory characters out of view.

Edited May 8, 2008 by mr_genius

[whitesoxfan101]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8050703932.html

 

Obama blames the Indiana loss on Rush Limbaugh. So much for the people who scoffed at Operation Chaos. Actually I doubt Limbaugh is causing anything here, but since he started this "Operation", a lot of stuff that has made Obama look bad has happened. Not sure it it'll be enough to help McCain beat him in November though.

[NorthSideSox72]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8050703932.html

 

Obama blames the Indiana loss on Rush Limbaugh. So much for the people who scoffed at Operation Chaos. Actually I doubt Limbaugh is causing anything here, but since he started this "Operation", a lot of stuff that has made Obama look bad has happened. Not sure it it'll be enough to help McCain beat him in November though.

I think it did cause something - the question is, was it enough to make that 17,000 vote difference.

 

[Balta1701]

Figured I'd post this here instead of the Enviro thread since it's more Dem than anything. Last week, Al Gore answered an interview question related to Pastor Hagee, hurricanes, and some of the other events around the world, saying that the increased number and intensity of hurricanes was a predicted consequence of Global warming, the right way to say it.

 

After that, some of the good folks out there on the right, out of the goodness of their heart, took the transcript of Mr. Gore's remarks, changed the order of a couple things, inserted a few ellipses, and were totally shocked to find out that Al Gore had blamed the recent Burmese Cyclone disaster on global warming. The article got a Drudge feature, got on Fox News and CNN, and so on. This is of course the wrong way to say it, as you can never blame any single event on climate change, but you do expect various trends to show up. Like increasing strength of cyclones which travel over anomalously warm waters.

[Balta1701]

The Republicans have adopted a slogan for their electioneering this year.

It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, “the change you deserve.” The first element of the party agenda developed over the past few months by the leadership and select party members will focus on family issues.

 

“Through our “Change You Deserve” message and through our “American Families Agenda,” House Republicans will continue our efforts to speak directly to an American public looking for leaders who will offer real solutions for the challenges they confront every day,” said the memo prepared for lawmakers.

The fun part?

That slogan is already taken. By an anti-depressant.

Wyeth's ad agency serenaded the nation with the message in its "The Change You Deserve™" campaign that, if we were not enjoying things the way we used to do, if we were lacking in what agencies used to call get-up-and-go, it was time to go on the antidepressant Effexor.

[mr_genius]

That slogan is already taken. By an anti-depressant.

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

Barack Obama... my anti-drug.

[BigSqwert]

LINK

 

House Republican Leaders Twist Obama Statement on Israel

 

May 12, 2008 9:19 PM

 

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., talked a great deal about Israel. He was rather effusive in his support for the Jewish state.

 

Apparently given nothing of substance to criticize, House Republican leaders then took a statement Obama made and twisted it to act as if the Democrat had insulted the Jewish state. Which he had not.

 

After describing some of the first times he thought about Zionism, Obama said "the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience."

 

He talked about how "the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land."

 

He assailed Hamas as a terrorist organization and said the United States "should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements."

 

When the topic turned to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama said, "Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security." When asked if Israel besmirches the United States' reputation, Obama said "No, no, no."

 

Then he said: "But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that ... I want to solve the problem..."

 

It seemed pretty clear to me that by "constant sore" Obama was referring to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As he says in the next sentence: the "lack of a resolution to this problem."

 

Nonetheless, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who knows better, accused Obama of calling Israel a "constant sore."

 

"Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims," Boehner said. "Obama’s latest remark, and his commitment to ‘opening a dialogue’ with sponsors of terrorism, echoes past statements by Jimmy Carter who once called Israel an ‘apartheid state.’"

 

(That's interesting because in that very same interview, Obama rejected Carter's use of the term "apartheid" as applied to Israel. Said Obama: "I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.")

 

Another member of the GOP House leadership, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, also misrepresented what Obama said.

 

"It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel," Cantor said.

 

When Obama twisted Sen. John McCain's "100 Years" comment, it was pretty dishonest as well.

 

But this may be worse, because Boehner et al are falsely accusing Obama of besmirching a nation and a people. They are accusing him of being anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic. It is false.

 

This kind of twisting is unbecoming a party that claims to have superior ideas to Obama's fairly orthodox liberal record. Voters may conclude that Republicans think they have to make things up to beat Obama. Which they don't.

[lostfan]

Either they are flat-out lying, or they just plain don't understand how America should conduct its foreign policy and they aren't taking it seriously. I think it's a little of both actually.